Insight from Colin Twiggs. I am not a licensed investment adviser. Please read the Disclaimer.

Spain Weighing a Fast, Costly Cleanup of Banks – WSJ.com

According to analysts at Morgan Stanley, Spain could acquire the entire €176 billion pile of impaired real-estate assets at the 58% discount applied by Ireland’s bad bank, or a cost of €73.9 billion. This could be funded by swapping new government debt for the banks’ soured real-estate assets.

However, the state would have to raise sufficient funds from investors to provide the banks with an estimated €28.5 billion in new capital to absorb losses that the banks would take in selling the assets at a steep discount. In all, the cost of the plan to the Spanish state could be €102.4 billion, or around 10% of Spanish GDP.

Colin Twiggs: ~ Spain faces the same tough choice as the Irish: rescue its banks, by putting its own finances at risk, or endure a massive recession as the banking system implodes and the flow of credit dries up. The first choice may be the least painful but will mean many years of austerity in order to bring government debt back below 60% of GDP.